Trying to be sensible about doctrine.
Is God all-powerful (omnipotent)? Is it true, as it is written in Luke 1:37, that there is nothing He cannot do?
God as an omnipotent creator is what I was taught growing up. It is what the Bible does indeed seem to teach (the foundational axiom is that the Bible is good for teaching and establishing doctrine).
So why do we have a common teaching that suggests God is not all-powerful?
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There may be a way of fixing Calvinism and the problems that Limited Atonement introduce but I do not think its supporters would like it at all.
I wrote recently about what I see as the fatal flaw – a hamartia if you will – in Calvinistic doctrine. Today, I’d like to propose a way to correct it.
My problem with the forms of Calvinism (that I have encountered) are the variations on the doctrine of Limited Atonement. More specifically, the behaviour it seems to produce in its adherents. These doctrines that limit the atonement to only God’s elect that are exposed to doctrinal tests go on to fail at every turn.
Calvinism sets up as a core belief that Grace is irresistible. It has to wrestle with the fact that while Philippians 2:10 talks about every knee bowing at the Name of Jesus when very few actually seem to do so. This is where Limited Atonement comes in. It says that God only picks those of us he loves and wants to save – everyone else was born for hell. It is not exactly conducive to loving people unconditionally. Why love those God hates?
As I have indicated before, this can produce a spiritual smugness – “God likes me, but you He hates”. That little bit of the yeast of the Pharisees goes on to corrupt the whole doctrinal system, its believers, and the church as a whole.
The fix to this problem was prosed sometime around the start of the seventeenth century by Moses Amyraut (1596–1664). I’ve talked about this person before when I tried (and utterly failed) to accurately define Amyraldism. My mistake was in not understanding Moses Amyraut’s idea that we are all the elect; everyone will be saved in the end.
Clearly then, I do not understand this doctrine as well as I thought I did. However, it does provide a form of Calvinism that can exist without the Biblically questionable doctrines that God only wishes to save some of us. Of course, you then have to accept a doctrine of the eventual salvation of all mankind. A doctrine is more commonly known as Universal Salvation.
This much wider and more inclusive Calvinism is, at least, more internally consistent, and less at odds with scripture. It would require you to abandon any doctrine of eternal punishment in hell too. In short, it calls for a full dose of metanoia. Which is okay because a change of mind is a vital part of repentance. Something we Christians should be comfortable with.
I am undecided about Calvinism but this way of fixing Calvinism at least leaves it doctrinally coherent.
Amyraldism is a word I bumped into for the first time right at the end of October 2017. If I do a poor job of defining it, please forgive me.
Amyraldism is, as I understand it, a form of theology introduced by Moise Amyraut. With Amyraldism, you get the Calvinist doctrines of total depravity, unconditional election, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. Which, up to that point, is regular vanilla Calvinism.
With Amyraldism however, only the elect are brought to faith and actually saved but salvation was available to everyone anyway (so going to hell is your fault). As I said, you get the teaching that Christ died to save all which (as I understand it) is at odds with regular Calvinism. [We are all the elect in the end.]
Moise Amyraut was alive between 1596 and 1664 which makes this doctrine less than 400 years old. Or, in other words, the Church taught something else for more than 75% of our history.
As doctrines go, Amyraldism is one which does not fit terribly well with Romans 8:32 as well as pretty much any verses that talk about God saving all men.
Amyraldistic theology might [not] explain Bob’s rather odd flavour of Calvinism. If it does then I disagree strongly with it.
According to one website I read (which gives a better definition), it is also known as “four-point Calvinism”.
I have no plans to use this word. I just thought it was interesting and (once again) avoiding working on my book. I’m not sure I fully understand the term but figured I would define it as best I could because of the topics I have covered previously.
If you have a better, clearer or deeper explanation of Amyraldism, please speak up. If I was wrong about any point, say something.
Share your thoughts – if only to let me know that someone is reading this.
It looks like I got this one wildly wrong. As Amyraldism, it seems is a doctrine of Universal Salvation. I’ve gone back over the post and struck out the parts that were wrong and added notes [like this] to correct what was clearly incorrect.